The Beauty of a Beat...

I broke down and bought a fetal doppler. For those of you who don't know, you can buy little heart monitors for at home so you can hear your baby's heartbeat for reassurance. Last time I was pregnant DH was not too keen on the fetal doppler when I suggested it. I could see his point. I'm a worrier by nature, and since my pregnancies seem to differ from most ladies symptom-wise it causes an increased amount of worry. DH being the caring husband that he is feared I may try to use it too early, or the baby may be facing the wrong way, or my uterus may be tilted, all of which would result in being unable to find the little ones heartbeat. So he vetoed the idea. This pregnancy in an effort to protect my own sanity I wasn't too interested in one. Until last week. Last week was the first week since week 6 that I haven't had an ultrasound. Last week my face started to clear up, I wasn't desperate for a nap, and I was going to the bathroom with no problems. My three reassuring symptoms were no longer so reassuring. Last week I was "technically" in the eleventh week of pregnancy(more on the "technically" later). So although I tried to remind myself that as you enter the second trimester you naturally start to feel better, although I never felt too awful so I didn't have far to feel better, it wasn't really working. Knowing I had to face an entire week at work this week and without an ultrasound, haven't done that since the week before Thanksgiving, I was losing my mind. DH had asked a few times for me to get a fetal doppler this time but I was blowing him off. Trying to stay strong and telling myself once I get to the second trimester some of this anxiety will dissolve. Thursday I broke. I've been lurking on a fertile bulletin board for July 2010 babies and nearly ALL of those women have dopplers at home. Since my doctor hadn't even mentioned letting us hear the baby's heartbeat I broke down and hit eBay to order a doppler. I didn't even bother to Make An Offer, I just hit Buy It Now on the first listing that said it would be here in three days and told that little doppler it couldn't get here fast enough. Now I fully knew Friday was a holiday and Sunday we'd get no mail so I was expecting my doppler on Monday, which seemed like an eternity. It's funny how you can go from absolutely not wanting something to desperately needing it in such a short period of time. Friday night was miserable for me. I couldn't sleep and I was worried about the baby. I've never been this far and every pull, stretch, and overall icky belly feeling terrifies me. Now anyone who has a DH can tell you that when you make a big deal about telling your DH no you don't want something and explain the reasons why explicitly, if you decide you do and turn around and buy it you aren't rushing to tell him you changed your mind and it's on the way. So I didn't tell DH Thursday, but it eventually slipped out Friday. Not like I planned to hide it from him. Obviously I was still terrified when it came I'd hear nothing at all. To the wonder of wonders the USPS really delivered this time and it was here on my doorstep on Saturday afternoon. Thank you USPS!! Now please don't really consider taking Saturday deliveries out of your repertoire, I look forward to my mail everyday I get it and Sundays just aren't as good as other days because they are mail-less. Anyway DH has had to work from 2pm-10pm for the last week and was working when it came. Now the responsible good wife side of me paused before ripping that box open and lubing that doppler up, but the terrified mother-to-be part of me that was tortured by chronic thoughts that something was wrong won out. Shame on me. Now the blogworld knows I am selfish-that's what DH called me when he found out what I'd done. I grew up an only child so being called selfish lost it's affect years ago, but I do feel guilty that I didn't wait, but if circumstances were identical I wouldn't change the course of my actions. Wow I'm terrible, but honest. First I checked to make sure it could find my own heartbeat. Success number 1, I was alive. My heart rate was a little elevated due to the anxiety of knowing what was coming. Next I went lower on the quest for Baby Bean's little heartbeat. People describe it as sounding like a galloping horse, so I was searching for a horse. After a few minutes, and a few busts where I found my own heartbeat again in my pelvic region, there was the beautiful fast heartbeat that absolutely rocked my world. That little heartbeat tore through all my anxiety and fear, it allowed me to breathe again, and it moved me in ways I never imagined I could be moved. I knew my love for this child would astound me, I knew I would love in ways I never knew were capable. Hearing our baby's heartbeat for the first time that love immediately washed over me. As selfish as it was, that moment that I shared alone in the privacy of my own house, just the baby and I as I discovered that little heartbeat is a moment I will cherish forever.

As for the "technically" eleven weeks part, baby dating is very confusing to me. Not like babies on eHarmony or Match.com meeting and having playdates, but figuring out where you are in your pregnancy. To me my pregnancy is simple. I didn't have a period. I didn't ovulate on my own. There was no "natural" babymaking involved. So why does there seem to be a problem figuring this out? Of course the minute you walk into the OB's office the nurse wants to know when was your last menstrual period? When you tell them I don't have periods it absolutely confuses them, how could you be pregnant then? Well you see I took a bunch of drugs to grow lots of eggs, after I took a bunch of drugs including birth control pills to shut my periods off(except I never had them anyway so...), and when the eggs were all grown a doctor used a long needle to extract them from my ovaries(which if I had a period this would have been considered ovulation day). After he extracted them he handed them to some very capable embryologists who already had my DH's swimmers prepped and ready to get in the game. The embryologists inserted one swimmer into each egg and then put all the resulting embryos in a little dish for five days. Once two of them reached blastocyst stage(you know, right before they normally implant?) a kind doctor and embryologist used a catheter and put two of them back in my little womb, where one of them preceded to implant like the very next day(I felt it so I'm sure). We did IVF. Still the nurse insists on the date of my last menstrual period. To appease her I calculate 2 weeks before my retrieval and say Oct 12. I've already looked at EVERY IVF due date calendar on the web so I know our due date is July 19. My RE and her ultrasound tech, who measured the baby week 6, 7, & 9, always measured the baby right on track and had told me the baby was due July 19. At my first OB visit week 8, the OB measured the baby and it was measuring a few days behind(no big deal there's a +/-7 days on ultrasound measurement anyway), and she told me the baby was due July 22 based on my LMP. Ugh. I told her it was an IVF baby AGAIN, and she did some refiguring and used some weird calculator on the internet and came up with July 24. I gave up knowing I'd see my RE the next week. At my RE's visit the baby again measured right on track and my RE again declared with certainty that my due date is July 19. On to the next week when we go back to the OB and we have our first external ultrasound, baby is measuring with her July 24 due date. Although DH & I notice she doesn't quite measure the entire baby, and our Tiny Dancer was so squirmy it was basically impossible. So I'm confused with baby dating. Seems to me if we know the exact moment I conceived and there's really no room for a late implanter or not knowing my date of ovulation and my RE who deals with IVF babies and calculating due dates is telling me July 19, I should go with her. Which is in my favor in the sense that it means my high risk period ends Tuesday. If I go with OB's due date my high risk period ends Sunday. Either way I can't believe I am SOCLOSE!!